Some doors close, others open

Rain strips the oaks of their autumn leaves, which float in great regiments to the ground. The tree line becomes more barren, visits from backyard birds less frequent, and there's a sometime shiver in the nighttime air.

Fall -- lovely fall, the best time of year -- is slowly receding and it leaves me wanting to hang on to it as long as I can.

My grandson, who just turned 5, is happy winter is coming. Not that he doesn't like fall, he revels in it, but he loves winter, too.

And it strikes me how much easier it is for kids to say goodbye, to leave one thing behind and move on to the next.

When my wife and I went to Disney World last year with our grandson and daughter, the trip was predictably wonderful and I was bummed when it was over. But there was my grandson the night we came home, running through the terminal at MacArthur, cackling as his green wheeled Trunki zigzagged behind him. A few hours earlier, he'd been amazed at Spaceship Earth. Now that adventure was over, and another was at hand.

We adults tend to channel the great fictional detective, Philip Marlowe, who reacted to the departure of a woman he'd loved by referencing a French phrase: "To say goodbye is to die a little."

My grandson, I suspect, would see an opportunity to say hello to someone else.

I suppose it's the innocence of lacking perspective. Fun is fun, and little ones find it everywhere. The rest of us wonder whether we'll ever again play in a piazza in Rome.

On Long Island, we're awash in nostalgia. You hear it all the time. Things were better then, we say wistfully. Remember when Long Island was rural? We used to know all our neighbors. Why isn't everyone as friendly as they used to be?

There's nothing wrong with yearning per se, or remembering the past as glorious. Except when it blinds us to what's good right now. And when it freezes us, and imprisons us, and makes us resistant to change.

I'm not talking about embracing the 65-inch flat screen as the trade-off for losing our rural character, or consoling ourselves with the fact that good sushi is now only 15 minutes away from anywhere. That's superficial change, not progress of the spirit.

I'm talking about recognizing possibilities and opportunities more varied than we imagined back when, and having the courage to embrace them.

I love to watch my daughters and their friends live in this world, in which a trip overseas is just part of life, not a once-in-a-lifetime thrill. In which they have friends literally in dozens of ports. In which they know people from places and with life experiences my generation never encountered. In which they boldly move from job to job, career to career, and never cease learning.

Remember when computers were new? We'd be using one and something unexpected would happen and we'd sit there, paralyzed, afraid if we hit the wrong key the darn thing would blow up. And our kids just kept typing, knowing if the first thing they tried didn't work they'd try something else.

That mindset is especially relevant these days, as we grapple with anxiety caused by great societal changes, an economy many no longer recognize, and the fracturing of institutions -- political, financial, religious, media -- that once helped us make sense of it all.

Do you see old things slipping away? Or new things coming?

Find your own suitcase on wheels. And keep typing.

Michael Dobie is a member of Newsday'seditorial board.

By Michael Dobie

michael.dobie1@newsday.commwdobie

Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.